


Today is the Opera of the Wasteland of Your Life

by prismaxle



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game), ヒプノシスマイク | Hypnosis Mic (Albums)
Genre: Ako's in the Background Learning About Feminism, Gamer Hifumi, Gen, Kaoru Makes a Fleeting Cameo, MMORPGs, Rinko and Hifumi Gamer Bros, Samatoki and Tomoe's Respecting Women Masterclass, Social Anxiety, Why Am I Writing About Hypmic I Don't Even Go Here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 02:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21348814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prismaxle/pseuds/prismaxle
Summary: Hifumi heard about a popular MMO called "Neo Fantasy Online" at work, and decides to check it out. As it happens, there's a special event going on, and a high-level Fire Wizard player named RinRin asks him to help her complete it. After a successful night of playing, the two start playing together every Wednesday night. "RinRin" being a female character is mildly concerning, but the player is probably a guy in real life. Right?---Rinko has a problem. NFO is running a special event, but she needs to partner with a newbie player to do it, and Ako isn't around to make a smurf to run it with. Despite her anxiety, she manages to find someone to run the event quest chain with, and they even agree to play together every Wednesday night. Witness the birth of the legend of IZANAMI the Necromancer.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Today is the Opera of the Wasteland of Your Life

“Neo Fantasy Online, huh...” The words glowed on the screen over a sprawling fantasy landscape of enchanted forests and crystal mountains which, together with the accompanying BGM featuring heavy strings and brass, promised a grand adventure.

It wasn’t exactly Hifumi’s typical activity on his nights off from work, but he had had more than a few customers at the host club mention it. Mostly it was their friends or younger siblings who played, but even one or two were apparently fairly regular players. He figured it was worth getting familiar with, at least. For work purposes, or something.

Character creation? Hmm. There was an overwhelmingly large number of options to play with. Hifumi’s first thought was to just click the Randomize option, but the outcome was a mishmash of uneven body proportions, complete with glowing red eyes and jet black hair shot with neon pink stripes and were those dog ears poking out?. Tacky. Clicking Randomize again spat out a plain enough base character design, but it came in an old-timey clothing set, featuring a black hakama and a purple sash. Hifumi could almost picture the book in Genta—in the character’s hand to complete the picture.

“Guess I’ll do it myself,” he muttered. He clicked Random again just to get the character model out of the ridiculous outfit, and then set about manipulating the sliders to bring the character’s appearance in line with his own—

“Wait, maybe not.” He didn’t really know how these MMO things worked. If his character looked like himself, would he get approached in-game like he did in real life? Needing to play with his suit jacket on sounded stupid. “Guess I’ll make some changes...and maybe play a female character? I think that should help...”

Hifumi switched the gender, though after moving sliders left and right and left again he ended up keeping most of the same body attributes. He set the hair to a different style that extended just a bit past the character’s shoulders. He chose a purple witch’s robe for the outfit, and matched it with a pointed hat that sat slightly crooked on her head. Satisfied with the design, Hifumi finalized it and proceeded with the rest of character creation. Soon enough, IZANAMI the Necromancer was ready to start her grand adventure...as soon as the intro finished loading. As he waited, Hifumi glanced at the clock. “Crap, 11pm already?” How’d he spend an hour and a half just on character creation? He meant to go to sleep at midnight like usual. Well, an hour would probably be plenty to get far enough into the game to figure out a bit of how it worked. Enough to hold a conversation about it next time he needed to. Right, this was for work purposes.

* * *

_Shirokane Residence, Rinko’s Room_

Sorry, Rinrin! I totally forgot Samatoki nii-san was coming over today. I ended up spending the afternoon learning about feminism from him and my sister and I still have my normal homework to do! Can’t play tonight ):  
That's okay, Ako-chan. Your studies definitely come first! Both in respecting women and in normie stuff w  
Yeah! I'll see you at band practice tomorrow :D

Rinko sighed. Of all the days. There was a special limited-time quest going on right now, and the loot table included a new accessory that was a must-have for Fire Wizards. The raw stats weren’t anything special, but the buffs to cast speed and cd reduction were invaluable. Problem being, she couldn’t do the quests on her own. It wasn’t an issue of power—she could solo the whole thing with just her puny mage fist autoattacks—but the quests required a party of two. Specifically a party of two where at least one member was less than level 10, supposedly to promote veteran players introducing the game to their friends and helping them get started. The plan had been for them to both make new smurf accounts and take turns enabling each other to do the quests, but now Ako was unavailable for the night, leaving Rinko with no one else. Hikawa-san had taken to playing NFO and sometimes they went questing together, but she kept a strict self-imposed rule of only playing on weekends. Guess that one Tuesday they ended up playing until 4am really got to her.

Rinko considered giving up for the night and just waiting for Ako to be available on another day, but something in her wanted to get that accessory as soon as possible. Maybe she could just go to Departure Village and invite some random actual newbie to a party. Interacting with strangers, her favourite solution to all her problems.

Well...it was another way for her to work on her issues, right? If she had to try and make friends or at least acquaintances with some random, Rinko figured there would be no safer space than NFO. She _had_ seen some threads in the forums of people actually trying to pair up with new players they didn’t know, too. Maybe she’d find a newbie player also hoping to find a partner. Maybe. Hopefully.

Loading in to Departure Village took longer than usual due to the higher than average player count (not to mention the high-level whales with their obnoxious five-colour two-headed flaming skeleton dragon mounts). Everyone was running everywhere. People trying to coordinate a meeting point with their partners. Others already in the quest chain running to or from a quest giver or objective. Even the chatbox was going too fast for her to keep up. God, didn’t these people know how to switch to party chat?

Suddenly there were sounds of action, of spells being cast and hitting their mark, coming from behind her character. Rinko turned around. A level 1 Necromancer was hitting some training dummies next to an NPC. That was...part of the tutorial. The skippable tutorial. Was this person just...starting a new character like there was no event going on?

Rinko watched the Necromancer finish with the training dummies and speak to the NPC. They stood there motionless for a while. Holy crap, were they actually reading the flavour text? She hadn’t seen anyone but her stop to do that in all the time she’d been playing. After a while, they slowly turned around and started running back into town, only to pause after a few steps to change direction going more towards the outskirts, where the next NPC for the tutorial quests was. They weren’t familiar with the area’s layout or how to read the minimap. They were _completely new_. But they weren’t partnering up with anyone? Had they missed the news about the event?

Rinko turned back around to look at the centre of town. Still complete chaos. Might as well try her luck with this one. She started running in the same direction the Necromancer went.

* * *

A sudden _ding_ interrupted Hifumi’s intense focus on casting fell magic on the overgrown rabbits outside town, which one of the town guards had asked him to help with population control for. He scanned the screen for a few seconds and noticed a red circle—presumably an alert—on the box of text in the lower-left corner, on the tab labelled **Private**. He clicked on it.

**RinRin:** hey there ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

He spotted the name labelled above someone standing nearby. Like his character she was in a purple robe and witch hat, though the fancy frills and sparkles on her outfit suggested they were much higher in level. It took several moments to process that they were an actual other player and not an NPC, and when he did he almost shit his pants. A girl was approaching him. Talking to him. Fuck. Why here, too?

**RinRin:** Do u know about the special event quest going on right now?

A special quest? Huh, guess they were asking about some game stuff. Now that he wasn’t in danger of needing to change his trousers, Hifumi remembered that he was playing a girl character anyway. It’s not like anyone in the game could see who he was or what he looked like in real life. Besides...if he was playing a girl, maybe that meant at least some other girl players were actually men?

...Yeah. He would go with that. He would just assume anyone and everyone he had to interact with was actually a guy in real life. That worked. Anyway, he needed to reply to this person. Hmm. He clicked the text box, then realized he should probably turn IZANAMI around to face them properly. He did that, then—whoops, didn’t mean to make IZANAMI jump.

RinRin jumped in response. Huh. Was this an acceptable form of communication? Hifumi made IZANAMI jump again. They continued this for about ten seconds before Hifumi realized they weren’t getting anywhere and he should maybe actually answer the question.

**IZANAMI:** uh, no, can’t say that i do. what’s this special quest?

In came a flurry of messages (this RinRin person typed _fast_), explaining the event and RinRin’s particular situation to Hifumi. The max-level Fire Wizard needed to make a party with a low-level beginner, but the friend they had been planning on doing it with was suddenly unavailable so could he please if he didn't mind help her out if that was ok. RinRin assured him that her stats were high enough that she could carry the both of them through it with minimal work on his part, and he’d get some good equipment rewards out of it too. That seemed like a pretty good deal. Besides, this event seemed like the kind of thing that an enthusiastic player might talk about. It would be in Hifumi’s best interest to learn more about it. For, uh, work purposes.

He glanced at the clock. 12am exact. “Guess I can go a little overtime...”

**IZANAMI:** sure, what the heck. let’s do it  
**IZANAMI:** lead the way?

RinRin jumped once. A notification popped up on Hifumi’s screen saying he had received a party invite from the Fire Wizard, which he accepted. RinRin turned and ran back towards town, and he followed. The next twenty minutes was a blur of big damage numbers and flashy spell animations as the two of them (mostly the wizard) leapt from quest to quest, target monster to target monster. Few words were exchanged, RinRin wasting no time or keystrokes and Hifumi being kind of hypnotized by the grace and skill with which she moved.

Soon enough they were standing over the corpse of The Fell Wyvern at the end of a cave and the quest chain. Hifumi had a shiny new scythe and armor set for his character, while according to the log RinRin similarly got some new equipment, names written in orange. He was pretty sure that meant they were good? RinRin jumped several times.

**RinRin:** We did it! Thanks for ur help (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ  
**IZANAMI:** no problem! it was fun  
**IZANAMI:** you’re amazing at this game huh  
**RinRin:** Not at all, I still have a long way to go. Gotta keep training

Hifumi wondered what that even meant. She was already max level, how much more could there be for someone like her to do?

**RinRin:** Btw, I’m guessing u started playing this game on ur own?  
**IZANAMI:** yeah, heard about it from people at work and thought i’d give it a try  
**IZANAMI**: why do you ask?

RinRin’s typing speed was so fast, even just a few seconds’ lull like this was stark in comparison.

**RinRin:** If u want, we can play together again next time ur on! I’m online pretty often. I can help u grind and stuff if u want (◕‿◕)  
**IZANAMI:** what’s grinding?  
**RinRin:** Oh it means like getting a whole lot xp or g really quickly by killing the same things over and over again  
**RinRin:** Blow things up so you can blow things up faster and all that

Hifumi knew a good offer when he saw one.

**IZANAMI:** if you don’t mind, sure!

Another notification popped up, this time a friend request. Hifumi accepted.

**RinRin:** Alright. I gotta go, thanks again ^^ See u next time (￣▽￣)ノ

Both characters jumped several times.

「RinRin」has logged out.  
「IZANAMI」has logged out.

* * *

RinRin! Samatoki nii-san was here again today. I think they’re gonna be teaching me feminism on Wednesdays for a while, sorry ;;  
  
That’s okay Ako-chan! I’m sure ur tired between band practice and learning how to respect women. Study hard ╰(▔∀▔)╯

Rinko swiveled in her chair to face the computer screens. They’d gotten Ako her gear from the quest over the weekend (they’d offered to get Hikawa-san in on it too, but apparently she’d invited her twin for it), so there was no longer any concern with the limited-time promotion. Still, Rinko wondered if....Ah. IZANAMI was online after all. Rinko logged in and, after only a small amount of debating with herself, sent them a whisper.

**RinRin:** Hello (*・ω・)ﾉ  
**IZANAMI:** oh hey

The Friends window indicated IZANAMI was currently in Winding Woods, two story areas after Departure Village. The special quest had gotten the Necromancer enough XP to be a little ahead of the story quests’ level curve for a while, but they had already levelled up a few more times since the previous week.  
**RinRin:** u doing story quests? I can come help kill things if u want  
**IZANAMI:** that’d be swiggity

Rinko’s character had loaded in to one of the endgame zones, called simply The Brink, from her last adventures with Ako. She made her way over to the Hippogriff Stand, and took the flight to the Landing Pad in the woods. She usually watched the full animation, but this time she skipped it, not wanting to keep her friend waiting. The Brink’s scenery was getting kind of tiresome, anyway, the next area couldn’t be added soon enough. She wove through the trees on her Obsidian Nightmare mount, using the minimap to find the necro a few minutes out. Upon arrival, the two of them spent several seconds jumping in greeting, before Rinko sent a party invite. NFO had a setting to allow sharing of quest target indicators with party members, so this way Rinko could easily see what she needed to immolate. (But not Immolate, because that was an excessively high-level Fire Wizard skill and she could one-shot everything here for much less mana.)

**RinRin:** Do u have any objections to me just blowing up everything here?  
**IZANAMI:** nah go ahead i’m getting kinda tired of this place

The two progressed like that for a while: IZANAMI would accept the quests and go to where the target mobs were, and before they could land two auto-attacks RinRin would Flame Sigil everything dead. Then IZANAMI would move on to the next quest, rinse and repeat.

**IZANAMI:** so can i count on you playing every wed evening?

**RinRin:** It depends how much schoolwork I have to do, but most of the time yea.  
**IZANAMI:** perfect, wednesdays are my night off from work

Rinko hummed happily. It sounded like her new friend was planning on staying invested in the game for at least the next little while. Ako and she had ended up playing with strangers before and the two would hit it off with the third person well enough to send Friend requests, only for them to never log in again, disappearing into the aether. IZANAMI was the first time she’d approached someone without Ako around, so she was really hoping they’d stick around. It was silly, but she felt almost responsible for the necro having a good time, similar to how she felt about Hikawa-san.

**RinRin:** Speaking of, did u tell the people from work that u started playing this game?  
**IZANAMI:** nah  
**RinRin:** (°ロ°) How come?  
**IZANAMI:** oh, maybe i wasn’t clear last time, they’re customers, not coworkers  
**IZANAMI:** they just haven’t come in since i started  
**RinRin:** o i c

With Rinko’s overpowered spells, they easily cleared all the story quests for Winding Forest, and the next several areas after that. By midnight, IZANAMI was pushing level 20.

**IZANAMI:** think that’s it from me for the night  
**RinRin:** Ok! Good work today ^^  
**IZANAMI:** you sure you don’t mind wasting all your time helping me?  
**IZANAMI:** i’m sure you have your own stuff you could be doing  
**RinRin:** Actually a lot of the content I’m on is hard to solo, and my usual friend isn’t online so I’d probably be farming around here either way  
**IZANAMI:** you actually need stuff from here? no way  
**RinRin:** No, but some low-level crafting materials drop here. Sometimes I farm them and sell them to other players who could use the crafting XP

There were far more efficient uses of her time if Rinko wanted to make money, but she didn’t find that kind of soulless grinding much fun. Besides, she liked the thought of playing a small part in lower-leveled players’ journey up through the various aspects of the game.

**IZANAMI:** ah, i see  
**IZANAMI:** well, thanks for your help! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ  
**IZANAMI:** i’ll see you next week?  
**RinRin:** yeah!

**IZANAMI:** w  
**RinRin:** ?  
**IZANAMI:** oh that’s why nothing was happening lol

The Necromancer jumped up and down repeatedly. The Fire Wizard did likewise.

「IZANAMI」has logged out.

Rinko Recalled back to the nearest city to list some crafting materials she’d picked up that evening at the Auction House.

「RinRin」has logged out.

* * *

**IZANAMI:** how come u fidget around a lot before u cast those aoe spells? don’t u kill everything in 1 hit anyway

Hifumi temporarily felt proud for even knowing the term ‘AoE’, then immediately felt incredibly lame for being proud of knowing basic gamer terminology. What was he, a boomer?

**RinRin:** Fire Wizard animations and cds take long, so I try to minimize the number of spells I have to cast  
**IZANAMI:** makes sense

Indeed, IZANAMI actually was starting to have more time to do damage to the mobs, as RinRin only had so many big spells to cycle through before they were all on cooldown and she had to resort to single-target abilities. At least the Galtea Snowfields were nice to look at.

**IZANAMI:** by the way, is it easy to get into cooking?

It felt weird even typing that question out. If only his real-world knowledge transferred in-game, he’d probably be at max cooking level already. Or maybe not, he didn’t exactly have experience working with ingredients like Red Lesser Dragon Meat and Moonlight Miracle Mushroom.

**RinRin:** ur interested in levelling some of ur Crafting skills? |ω･)  
**IZANAMI:** yeah, i was talking to my customers who play and they mentioned it

That was a lie, Hifumi still hadn’t told anyone that he’d started playing Neo Fantasy Online. The few customers he knew were actually avid fans still hadn’t been back, and most of the women who had been talking about it otherwise hadn’t mentioned it since. Hifumi had looked into that whole crafting business himself since RinRin had mentioned it a few weeks back. The most straightforward system was Smithing—make equipment better than what you already had. But the equipment he’d gotten from that special quest was still scaling with his level, so he didn’t need to replace it yet. That also eliminated any need to delve into the slightly more esoteric Enhancing system too, which was about adding buffs and secondary effects to equipment. The range of effects seemed interesting and he could just about glimpse how game-changing some of them could be, but the event equipment were Unrefinable, already having a whole host of innate bonuses attached. There were some wacky stuff like Alchemy, but out of what else was there Cooking seemed like his best option, producing consumables that gave useful buffs that were easy enough to understand, albeit he didn’t know which ones were good. Plus, he thought it would be cute if IZANAMI was a cook like he was.

**RinRin:** Neat! Well, usually for a necro u’d be looking at foods that buff things like mana regen or stat proc, but for now since I can still mostly hardcarry u u can go for utility buffs like move spd or xp gain  
**RinRin:** It’s mostly the dessert-type stuff. I think the most basic one is Sugar Cookies?

Hifumi navigated the windows, Inventory>Crafting>Cooking>Desserts, not quite deftly, but he was no longer taking 2 minutes remembering which hotkey even opened the Inventory. Sugar Cookies sat right at the top of the list.

**IZANAMI:** indeed it is  
**IZANAMI:** effect looks kinda...small tho ( ´ д ` )

Hifumi wasn’t planning on going crazy about maximizing grinding or anything, but +0.01% extra xp was not particularly impressive.

**RinRin:** Yeah, it isn’t until the later ones that it starts to get interesting, but those need higher Cooking Level  
**RinRin:** It’s pretty easy to grind out, though. Just need money for ingredients, which u should have a fair amount of since u haven’t been needing to buy new equipment  
IZANAMI: oh, neat. i’ll have a go at that when we’re back in town then

As luck would have it, they were already almost done with the Snowfields. The story quests sent IZANAMI after the Ancient Frostwyrm boss in the Frozen Abyss dungeon, which crumpled like wet toilet paper to RinRin’s Dragon Slayer-boosted, elemental weakness-hitting spells. The following quest sent him back to Grand Capital, the big hub city in the middle of the continent. The two made their way to the area’s Landing Pad and got on the hippogriff ride to their destination, the NPCs and mobs of the Snowfields turning into small dots before disappearing altogether as they flew higher into the sky. The animation was skippable, but Hifumi preferred to appreciate the scenery instead of a loading screen.

**RinRin:** This is about a third of the way through the main story content already  
**RinRin:** It’s hard to believe u only started playing several weeks ago!  
**IZANAMI:** it’s mostly thanks to u  
**IZANAMI:** i’d probably still be around everdeep marsh if u weren’t mass-murdering all the mobs for me  
**RinRin:** (^人^)  
**RinRin:** Anyway, when we land, we can go to the Food Market in the west end of the city. The Master Baker’s store has pretty much all the ingredients you need for Desserts up to about level 40.  
**IZANAMI:** they really called an npc the master baker?  
**RinRin:** Yeah  
**RinRin:** Don’t ask what the NPC who sells fishing equipment is called  
**IZANAMI:** yikes

* * *

**RinRin:** Sorry I’m late!! Practice ran long and I also had schoolwork to do

Even with sending that Whisper, it took a while to even spot the Necromancer among the sea of people, both PCs and NPCs, that were typical of the large hub cities like Grand Capital. It was a pleasant surprise to see that her friend was at the Food District, likely working on their Cooking skill. It was as good a sign as any that IZANAMI was in this for the long haul; most casual players got along well enough just replacing their equipment whenever it got too low-level. (Rinko also noted that IZANAMI was about to hit Lv45, when the equipment from the Mentor a Newb quests stopped scaling up. Just as well, since it was hard to argue that IZANAMI was in any way still a newbie.) Taking an interest in side activities like Crafting, especially one of the more esoteric ones like Cooking, took a certain level of dedication. The two of them had taken to spending five to ten minutes at the end of their play sessions to hang around in the Food District so the Necromancer could bake a whole bunch of whatever pastry was the highest level he had unlocked, while Rinko busied herself auctioning off the materials she’d picked up or working on her own Crafting skills. She’d been neglecting most of these for a while since it was difficult to get Ako to sit still long enough for this kind of thing. It was nice, actually, getting the opportunity to work on a different facet of the game.

**IZANAMI:** no worries!  
**IZANAMI:** i’ve been here for like half an hour just grinding out cooking xp anyway (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ  
**IZANAMI:** good timing actually, it looks like i’m about to start hitting recipes that call for ingredients my friend master baker doesn’t sell  
**RinRin:** Oh wow, ur that far up already?  
**IZANAMI:** yea :D  
**IZANAMI**: i’m also incredibly broke lol  
**IZANAMI:** baking 200 royal cheesecakes takes a lot of g  
**RinRin:** Don’t worry, we’ll make it back today!  
**IZANAMI:** right on  
**IZANAMI:** think now we’re off to the Abandoned Gemsteel Mines  
**RinRin:** Lead the way~  
**RinRin:** Wait no  
**IZANAMI:** ?  
**RinRin:** Do you still have money for ingredients to make some Tea Drinks? You’re gonna want the Mana Regen buff  
**IZANAMI:** uh  
**RinRin:** It’s with Master Brewer

The Necromancer ran over to the NPC behind a stall stocked with bags of coffee beans and tea leaves and various equipment for preparing both kinds of drinks.

**IZANAMI:** i can only afford the lv1 stuff  
**RinRin:** Here I can give you some money  
Rinko opened the Mail window, briefly keysmashed to fill the Subject line and Message body since the system didn’t allow for those to be blank, and added 500 thousand gold.

You sent Mail to 「IZANAMI」.  
**IZANAMI:** wtf 500k  
**RinRin:** idk how much the lv40 tea ingredients cost lol  
**RinRin:** Anyway the mines have a solo instance near the end so u’ll be on ur own. ur stats should be fine but it’ll get annoying if u can’t keep ur summons up. Make two of the highest-level Tea you can make, that should last long enough for the whole dungeon. And don’t be afraid to use your mana pots!

Some tea brewing and a party invite later, they were soon on their way. The Mines were one of Rinko’s least favourite areas. Being dreaded by players was mostly by design, since it served as a sort of test not only of raw stats but also of actual skill at the game. Around here, casuals had to either actually get good, or grind a whole crapton if they still wanted to try and brute force it with big numbers.

Still, the design of the area was repetitive and not exactly pretty to look at; endless bland passages of cave walls littered with broken mine carts and cart tracks and the odd skeleton, a far cry from the breathtaking vistas in the rest of the continent. Even the colourful crystals dotting the walls went from oases among the dull brown tones to annoying geometric eyesores far too quickly.

**IZANAMI:** i am not fond of this area  
**RinRin:** wig  
**IZANAMI:** skeleton mobs are the worst

Oh yeah, that was another thing. Necromancers could get confused between their own skeleton summons and enemy skeletons. Ako hadn’t had a good time here either (especially since she wasn’t, ah, the best at that whole skill thing). Plus, at this point even Rinko couldn’t one-shot the mobs, needing to land at least a second hit, and it was hard to position for her AoE spells in the tight and unusually shaped chambers that made up the area.

**RinRin:** Oh, but at least ur Dark-element spells are better in the dungeon here!  
**IZANAMI:** the light-elem dungeon is here, of all places?  
**RinRin:** Yeah it’s weird  
**RinRin:** but that’s the main reason why I wanted u to have Tea. If you can keep your spells off cd you’ll be fine  
**IZANAMI:** i guess that’s good to hear at least

With a bit more slogging and a nonzero amount of Revival Scrolls, eventually they made it down to the depths of the mines. A single large and faintly glowing pure white crystal rose out of the ground in the middle of the chamber, serving as the entrance to the dungeon instances.

**IZANAMI:** guess this is it  
**RinRin:** Don’t forget to bind mana pots to your 0 key if u haven’t already. u have Drain Life and Consume Souls so u won’t need health pots  
**IZANAMI:** huh, ur pretty familiar with the necro skill tree  
**RinRin:** My friend plays it ^^  
**IZANAMI:** ah  
**IZANAMI:** what will u do?  
**RinRin:** I’ll sit out here and grind some Crafting for a bit

The Fire Wizard walked over to the Merchant and Item Vault, reliably present here as they were at every dungeon entrance.

**RinRin:** I might log off while ur in there tho, I should be heading to sleep soon  
**RinRin:** oh that reminds me  
**RinRin:** I won’t be able to play next week  
**RinRin:** got to practice for a live show coming up  
**IZANAMI:** like a concert? u play music?  
**RinRin:** Yeah  
**IZANAMI:** that’s cool!

**IZANAMI:** whereabouts? if it’s around shinjuku maybe i can come watch

Rinko hesitated. Meeting up irl...? Did she trust IZANAMI enough? They’d been playing together for almost three months now. They didn’t make a habit of talking extensively about irl stuff—mostly they just talked about the game—but they both had let some details drop about their lives. IZANAMI’s player worked at a bar and liked to cook. They lived with a childhood friend. Rinko was sure she’d mentioned being a high school student, and aside from the game, spending her time reading mythology and doing crosswords. Earlier it came up that they both liked to sew.

She was pretty sure she’d known less about Ako when they’d first met up, and now Ako was so very dear to her. Besides, as far as meetups went, a Roselia live was probably one of her safest environments. The rest of the band would be there, as well as the crowd.

**IZANAMI:** it’s ok if u dont want to, that was kind of forward  
**RinRin:** No it’s alright! Let’s do it  
**RinRin:** The venue is called Galaxy. It’s in Shinjuku so that works perfectly  
**RinRin:** Next Sat, at noon. We have it booked for an hour and a half.  
**IZANAMI:** that’s perfect, plenty of time before i have to go to work  
**RinRin:** yay!  
**RinRin:** I’ll be on keys  
**IZANAMI:** can’t wait

There was nothing more to say, so Rinko opted to jump. The Necromancer jumped in kind.

**IZANAMI:** well, here i go  
**RinRin:** gl in there!

After watching the Necromancer disappear into the crystal, Rinko opened the Smithing window, and set about making the lv 50 Necromancer gear set.

* * *

Hifumi double-checked the address on his phone. _Galaxy Live House_. This had to be the place. There were fliers on the window advertising a show at noon by a band called Roselia. Hmm. RinRin hadn’t mentioned a name, so that was no help, but at least the time checked out. There was no line outside, but it was already 11:45, so anyone who had been waiting was probably already inside. He pulled open the door and walked in.

“Welcome!” Hifumi instantly shuddered, hopefully not too visibly. That was a girl’s voice. This was a bad start. Should’ve stayed home. No! He was here to support his friend RinRin. His friend who come to think of it he wasn’t actually sure the gender of.

“Um, are you ok, sir?”

He willed himself to turn towards the clerk. Behind the counter sat a bespectacled blue-haired girl. Probably a high school student, from the looks of her. He was a grown man, he could survive an interaction with a high school student without shitting himself. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine, sorry, spaced out there for a sec, haha.” Deep breath, deep breath. “Can I get a ticket for the Roselia show?”

The girl’s eyebrows widened, as she briefly tapped away at her computer. Her eyes flickered across the screen several times, before she finally turned back to him and nodded. “That’ll be 2500 yen.”

Hifumi wanted nothing more than to complete the transaction as quickly and quietly as possible, but it was hard not to wonder what the girl’s reaction was all about. Hopefully nothing bad. “Is it weird for someone like me to be seeing Roselia? I don’t know a whole lot about them, my friend just recommended them to me so...” That wasn’t quite right, but he figured it was close enough.

“Oh, sorry if I seemed skeptical. That was rude of me.” The clerk bowed her head in apology. “It’s rare that we get people asking to buy Roselia tickets at the door, especially with less than half an hour to go. They usually sell out, so most fans don’t bother trying this close to the show. Fortunately we happen to still have a few this time around.”

“Huh, lucky me.”

The girl nodded. “Concert hall is down the stairs and to the left. Washrooms are to the right. We ask that you try and go before entering the hall, or hold it until afterward. Aside from that, enjoy the show!”

“Right. Thanks!” Yeah, he could use a moment to relieve himself. More than he already had, at least.

When he stepped into the venue, Hifumi’s jaw dropped. The clerk wasn’t kidding, the concert hall was standing room only, and still almost completely full. He was at least taller than most of the crowd, so he still had a clear view of the stage even from the very back.

Almost as soon as he entered, the lights dimmed. The din of the crowd quieted down impressively quickly in response, to be replaced by a swelling piano intro. A rousing snare roll joined in, before an electric guitar sting kicked off a much more intensely driven beat. When a spotlight shone on the vocalist and she started singing, Hifumi only barely registered that she was also a girl. His focus was entirely on the bright tones of the keyboard backing her up.

At least until more of the stage lit up, revealing the rest of the band. The rest of the _girls’_ band. First it was just the keyboardist—RinRin—that he saw, long black hair that matched the Fire Wizard’s swaying elegantly in time with the beat. But sure enough, the guitarist, bassist, and drummer were all female as well. As the song hit the first chorus, the crowd cheered, and Hifumi registered how high-pitched they were. Sweat dripped from his brow. He had unknowingly entered a lions’ den.

He turned to the person standing to his left. His purple hair was long enough to be in a ponytail, but he cut a dashing enough figure that Hifumi figured he was safe. “Hey, is this—”

He wasn’t even really sure where he was going with that, but before he could finish, the person he had desperately grabbed onto turned to him in surprise and asked, “What is wrong, dear kitten? Oh, my apologies, you are not a kitten at all. Are you—”

Hifumi barely suppressed a scream, managing to contain it to a strangled gurgle. The voice was smooth and low and honestly made him feel a little gay, but it was still distinctly feminine. “S-sorry to bother you,” he managed to stammer out. He let go of her arm and took a few paces back, as if trying to establish a safety bubble. Not that there was much room for that, any more paces and he’d be getting closer to the girl standing on his right.

By pure force of will he managed to keep it together long enough to stay for the rest of the song, all but dissociating as he stared off into space and tried to focus on the genderless sounds of the instruments ringing out. Still, as the song came to a close, the cheers of the crowd were overwhelming and before he knew it he was out the door.

* * *

I finished Samatoki nii-san and Onee-chan’s feminism course today! Next Wednesday I’ll be able to play again (っ≧ω≦)っ  
Can’t wait to meet ur new friend  
I’m still ur fave Necromancer tho, right?  
Ofc (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡  
Yay!

Rinko wasn’t even sure if IZANAMI would still be playing with her. After the show on Saturday she’d rushed to change out of her outfit so she could wait in the lobby while the rest of the band finished up, but while she got asked for a few signatures no one had identified themself as the Necromancer. She had considered sending a message, but IZANAMI had been offline since the show. Not that that was unusual—Rinko rarely saw them online aside from Wednesday evenings—but she had figured _something_ would’ve happened.

As it happened, IZANAMI was online according to the Friend Activity tab in the launcher, though Rinko opted not to immediately send a Whisper. IZANAMI would get a notification when she loaded into the game proper anyway. Consulting the Friends window, Rinko found the Necromancer in the Market Alley in Boreanth, another hub city area on the northern end of the continent that saw less traffic than Grand Capital but served most of the same functions. Boreanth’s Master Chef unified the ingredients shops and went to a higher level than the ones in Grand Capital’s Food District, so that made sense.

Rinko hit the Spacebar with a little more force than she intended to, making RinRin jump as she approached, and was surprised at how relieved she was when IZANAMI jumped in return.

**IZANAMI:** hey  
**RinRin:** (*・ω・)ﾉ

Her fingers froze, hovering over the keyboard, not quite sure how to phrase what she wanted to ask. Luckily, her friend took the initiative.

**IZANAMI:** sorry i couldnt talk to u after ur live, had to leave early  
**IZANAMI:** i was there tho!

More relief. It seemed their friendship wasn’t irreparably damaged, at least. The worst-case scenarios Rinko had jumped to hadn’t come to pass, after all.

**RinRin:** Oh okay! I understand  
**RinRin:** I’m glad you were able to make it at all  
**IZANAMI:** me too  
**IZANAMI:** u were great. the whole band was great. i see why it was almost sold out.  
**RinRin:** Thank you!!  
**RinRin:** Did you have a favourite song?

This was a distressingly long pause.

**IZANAMI:** well uh  
**IZANAMI:** i could only stay for one song so i guess the first one, by default  
**RinRin:** Oh, Opera of the Wasteland! That’s one of my favourite songs to play  
**RinRin:** You had to leave that soon? Did something come up?  
**IZANAMI:** yeah there was an emergency at work  
**IZANAMI:** and uh

**IZANAMI:** ok no sorry that was a lie right there  
**IZANAMI:** see the thing is  
**IZANAMI:** god this is incredibly embarrassing i hate talking about this  
**RinRin:** it’s alright you don’t have to force yourself ^^;  
**IZANAMI:** no you should know  
**IZANAMI:** so i’m a guy irl right  
**IZANAMI:** and i’m like deathly afraid of women

Rinko could see how that might be a problem. Come to think of it, she didn’t think she’d mentioned her gender at all before. IZANAMI the character was female herself, so her player had probably figured RinRin’s player was also male irl. It wasn’t exactly uncommon.

**RinRin:** ah  
**IZANAMI:** it doesn’t affect me at work bc i have this suit that helps me not lose my shit  
**IZANAMI:** it’s weird pls don’t ask  
**IZANAMI:** but the rest of the time....yeah  
**RinRin:** well you’re talking to me now aren’t you?

**IZANAMI:** huh, guess i am  
**IZANAMI:** do u think thats weird  
**IZANAMI:** i promise im not making that fear of women thing up  
**RinRin:** no it’s ok i believe you  
**RinRin:** i have crippling social anxiety irl but i mostly manage in-game so i kinda get it??  
**IZANAMI:** no way u looked so cool onstage  
**RinRin:** you really think so?  
**IZANAMI:** yeah!!  
**IZANAMI:** mind you i couldnt really focus bc i was kind of trying not to pass out  
**IZANAMI:** but you looked real, idk, elegant!!  
**IZANAMI:** especially in the outfit you had on that was stunning  
**RinRin:** you think so?? (*ﾉωﾉ) I make all the outfits for the band  
**IZANAMI:** really?? thats sick  
**IZANAMI:** i knew you were into sewing too but that’s a whole other level  
**RinRin:** (*ﾉωﾉ)  
**RinRin:** oh yeah that reminds me  
**RinRin:** it’s not sewing but i made these for you!  
You sent Mail to 「IZANAMI」.  
**IZANAMI:** new equipment! Ty  
**IZANAMI:** I should cook somethin for you  
**IZANAMI:** I guess tea works for you too right? mana regen is good  
**IZANAMI:** the higher end ones give a crit bonus too  
**RinRin:** wait really??

Rinko hadn’t known that. When she bought food from the Auction House she usually went for Curry since that food type boosted spell power. The Necromancer hopped excitedly on the spot, surprised he knew something she didn’t. There was a warm feeling in Rinko’s own heart. The newbie player she’d called out to and befriended was now so into the game that he’d taught her something she didn’t know about.

IZANAMI started jumping away towards the Hippogriff Stand to fly to the next area in the story quests, and RinRin followed right along.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone's curious, the look Hifumi settled on in character creation was loosely based on Chisato's "Idol Witch" card from the "Trick or Escape!" event. RinRin's appearance as (briefly) described is, of course, based on her "Supreme Wizard" card from the NFO event.
> 
> I based their experience of NFO on my own MMO experiences, probably most influenced by Aura Kingdom and TERA.
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed this bandori/hypmic crossover written by someone who knows almost nothing about hypmic


End file.
